The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that allows users to access information and resources via interlinked hypertext documents on the World Wide Web (WWW) (commonly referred to as “the Web”). Users can browse these documents utilizing a web browser that navigates between the various websites or webpages. The Internet provides users with a wealth of information, data, and communication services including commercial websites/webpages, personal websites/webpages, electronic commerce (e-commerce), news services, financial services, and electronic mail (e-mail), short message service (SMS), etc. The Internet also been used to provide other telecommunication services such as voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Many websites also provide a voice interface by playing audio files and accepting audio inputs.
Service providers have offered basic data services in the typical telecommunication based networks such as email, news updates, etc. However, a disadvantage of these services is that they typically require a digital device such as a computer or smart phone that interfaces with the Internet infrastructure in order to access the information. A further disadvantage of these systems is that they do not provide an infrastructure that provides voice and digital information such that a telephone user could provide and control data services to other telephone users.
The World Wide Telecom Web (WWTW) (also referred to as “Telecom Web” or “Spoken Web”) is a voice-driven communications system that is parallel and complimentary to the WWW. The WWTW is a network of interconnected VoiceSites (which are analogous to web sites). Each VoiceSite consists of a set of interconnected VoicePages (i.e., VXML files) that are hosted and collocated in the telecom infrastructure. VoiceSites are voice-driven, user created and hosted applications that are accessible via mobile or landline telephones. Users access the VoiceSite to listen to the content that has been uploaded there or to upload additional content.
The present invention provides a VoiceSite having many useful advantages including, for example, the ability to: (i) allow multiple users, i.e., authors or roles, to create and/or edit a VoiceSite at the same or different times by calling into and editing the VoiceSite; (ii) synchronize and merge the input of each user; (iv) display different voice interfaces to different users based on their roles, section(s) edited, edit history, etc.; (v) pass control to different users at different points in time; (vi) perform consistency checks when the same content is being edited; (vii) automatically recognize which input from which user goes to which VoiceSite or VoiceSite section; and (viii) make outbound calls to users to gather input.